Journeys Through the Word
“Then Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of all the goods he had recovered.”
Verse(s) considered:
Genesis 14:13-20
(13) But one of Lot’s men escaped and reported everything to Abram the Hebrew, who was living near the oak grove belonging to Mamre the Amorite. Mamre and his relatives, Eshcol and Aner, were Abram’s allies.
(14) When Abram heard that his nephew Lot had been captured, he mobilized the 318 trained men who had been born into his household. Then he pursued Kedorlaomer’s army until he caught up with them at Dan.
(15) There he divided his men and attacked during the night. Kedorlaomer’s army fled, but Abram chased them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus.
(16) Abram recovered all the goods that had been taken, and he brought back his nephew Lot with his possessions and all the women and other captives.
(17) After Abram returned from his victory over Kedorlaomer and all his allies, the king of Sodom went out to meet him in the valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).
(18) And Melchizedek, the king of Salem and a priest of God Most High, brought Abram some bread and wine.
(19) Melchizedek blessed Abram with this blessing: “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth.
(20) And blessed be God Most High, who has defeated your enemies for you.” Then Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of all the goods he had recovered.
Thoughts along the road:
I wrote a story about this section a few years ago. I was fascinated about what the tale of a young slave of Lot’s might be if he survived the great battle and saw Lot and his family being carted off as spoils of war. The young man braved many difficulties to get word to Abram about Lot’s capture.
Abram proved in this action to be more of a military man than we normally think he was. He had a much smaller force, but in choosing to attack from two sides at night, he overpowered King Kedorlaomer’s army and chased them quite a distance before recovering Lot, his family and all the goods that had been taken as spoils.
But, here we find an even more interesting story.
On his way back, Abram is greeted and blessed by Melchizedek, the king of Salem and a priest of God Most High. This story prefigures the communion that Jesus establishes later because Melchizedek brings Abram bread and wine.
Then Abram does something that I also did not expect, he gives Melchizedek a tenth of all that he had received. This prefigures tithing.
Also remember that in Psalms 110:4 and Hebrews 7:17, Melchizedek himself is a type of Christ as a King and a priest of God Most High.
Where to go from here:
Ok, so what does all that do for us? It tells me that God has been sending us messages about who Jesus is since before we got the Bible.
I can see clearly that He was telling us about Himself through things that happened like this one. God set up, over a number of years a situation that would bring Abram together with Melchizedek, the king of Salem and a priest of God Most High and foreshadow Jesus for us. I am amazed by this and completely in awe of the lengths He went to in order to do this.
This also speaks to me about the cohesiveness and consistency of the message that God is presenting to us in the scripture. He had planned what He would do about our sin situation from before time existed. He knew that we would sin. He knew that we would need a way to get that sin problem fixed and that Jesus was going to be the answer.
God had us in His heart and in His mind way before we ever existed.
That, to me is love.
Journeys Through The Word 